Installed in 2014, the 40 feet high, 30 feet wide and 100 feet in the sky poem for peace was created by poet and playwright Lemn Sissay MBE, and is permanently displayed at the University of Huddersfield’s creative arts building. The poem is also displayed at the University of Manchester and the headquarters of the British Council in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
You can hear him recite his poem here:
Let There Be Peace
by Lemn Sissay
Let there be peace
So frowns fly away like albatross
And skeletons foxtrot from cupboards,
So war correspondents become travel show presenters
And magpies bring back lost property,
Children, engagement rings, broken things.
Let there be peace
So storms can go out to sea to be
Angry and return to me calm,
So the broken can rise up and dance in the hospitals.
Let the aged Ethiopian man in the grey block of flats
Peer through his window and see Addis before him,
So his thrilled outstretched arms become frames
For his dreams.
Let there be peace
Let tears evaporate to form clouds, cleanse themselves
And fall into reservoirs of drinking water.
Let harsh memories burst into fireworks that melt
In the dark pupils of a child’s eyes
And disappear like shoals of silver darting fish,
And let the waves reach the shore with a
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
